Zutara Week 2016
by archergwen
Summary: Dragons (Dovahkiin); Reincarnation; Memories; Lilac; Fever; Coffee; Candles (Jab Tak Hai Jaan)
1. Dov

The winds whips her face as she runs, her feet hitting the earth with superhuman speed.

She just needs to make it to the river.

A breath of heat licking her heels sends her running faster, **_WULD NAH KEST_** leaping to her lips with practiced ease.

Her feet eat up the distance as if they were dragon's wings.

He hates her with all the fury of fire; he has to. She is his antithesis - "though not enough" - the world's shamans intone.

She is just enough his twin to destroy him.

The speed of dragons leaves her as she splashes into the water. Pinpricks flit over her body, the tell-tale sign her bending is healing her, erasing the dragon's marks.

She is human, mortal, a quickly burning life, and as human is water and earth.

He is dragon, timeless, Akatosh's own, as such he is air and fire.

They should be opposites, opposed but able to live in tandem - or war, really, for the greed of sentient species cannot be contained whether they were furs and skin or scales and claws.

But she, Katara of Riften, is Dragonborn, dovahkiin, the blood of Akatosh - or Agni if you want to use the dragon name for him - so she is water, earth, with that touch of divine fire.

She can rage with a temper as great as any dragon.

Her fury has toppled glaciers, toppled empires, and debased would-be gods. Alduin and Miraak lay broken at her feet. One upstart dragon won't be her end.

Claws drag along the surface of the river, and she pounces.

Wrapped in waves, she explodes from the water to wrap around the dragon's neck. He spins over, but her wave has solidified into ice. His wing joints compromised, he falls towards the earth, and crashes, his weight between her and the ground.

He writhes, clawing, trying to reach her and dislodge her but she pushes free, drawing water along with her to lock him in ice to the ground.

It doesn't last long - without her constant bending, his joints work free and he rights himself, lips drawn back so his teeth - long and sharp - are ready to strike and devour her whole.

He is too slow; she bought just enough time.

 _ **JOOR ZAH FRUL  
**_

He flies back, the purple magic taking him by surprise. He tumbles back, falling over himself.

Katara's running now, towards him, ice needles forming in her hands ready to shred his wings when she suddenly stops in horror.

There's no gust of power keeping him grounded. Instead, his scales and swathes of hide are lifting from him, peeling away into licks of flame that vanish as he's wreathed in golden light.

Did she kill him so quickly?

No.

By the Nine, by Tui and La, _no_.

A man, a human man in clothes out of fashion by several eras, stands on unsteady feet and looks at his hands and her in wonder.

"Lost drey hi?"

"I-"

"What have you done," he growled, practically a roar.

"How are you human?"

"That's how I was born until-" He cuts himself off, drawn back with sudden surprise. His hair is dark, awkwardly cut as if cut in a hurry. He glances back at her with golden eyes. "How can you use the dovahzul?"

She smirks, "I am dovahkiin."

He starts towards her - her hand drift to her water pouch out of habit - and as he gets closer she can make out a scar across one eye and cheek.

He's unarmed, unsurprisingly, and doesn't move with lethal intent, so Katara relaxes, only to start again when he suddenly grabs her chin, tilting her face from side to side.

"Yes," he begins as she squirms to get free from his iron grip. "I guess you are." He lets go just as she makes to jab him in the side.

"Well, Hermaeus Mora lied. Knowledge divinity and he tells me I have to slay the Dragonborn, the being of earth, fire, and water."

"That's not a surprise. Were those his exact words? Because that squid will slip around anything if it's worded right. He's a chore."

The man quirks an eyebrow. "Dealt with him personally?"

"Twice. I didn't get to punch him either time."

He laughs.

"What's your name? Or should I call you Dovahkiin?"

"Katara."

"That's not related to the Dovahzul at all."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, because a couple of humans living in Riften are going to be fluent enough in an ancient dragon tongue that they'll name their daughter a hero's name."

"Where's Riften?"

"We're standing in it. This whole hold is Riften, though I guess as a dragon you wouldn't recognize human borders. Where are you from?"

"Cyrodill. Though I imagine it's changed. I'm not sure what year this is."

"Welcome to the Fourth Era. We've got no High King, no Emperor, though I'm working on that."

He sputters, before trying to pass it off and retain dignity. "I was a dragon longer than I thought."

Katara shrugs, like this is a normal occurrence. "Happens to the best of us," she replies, thinking of a vampire who is considering mortality, who held an Elder Scroll just as Katara did.

"Anyway, not-dragon, what's your name?"

"I'm Zinyoros."

"What?"

He glowers, before biting the name out again with the same sense of doom with which the Greybeards speak. "Zinyoros."

"Your parents gave you that name?"

"No," his anger dissipates into something much more tragic, intangible and difficult to hold like wisp wrappings. "I don't remember that name. I don't remember them."

Katara reaches out with a hand, startling him even if he leans into the touch. "Come with me, then, Zinyoros. I'll show you what the human world's been up to while you flew above it."

* * *

 _He'd almost forgotten music, too, until she said his name._

 _._

 _._

 **(A/N: Mirabelle's "Dragonrend" inspired this. Also, according to "Zinyoros" would approximately mean "flame of honor.")**


	2. Reincarnation

Her eyes are almost blinded when she looks at him, really _looks_ , to see all his lives.

Life after life is pressed into his frame, a multitude of scarred men made hard and strong by the world. He is an inferno, a blaze of life and death and power that flickers.

He doesn't remember them all - with that many he _can't_ ; he'd go _mad_ \- but when she watches the man he is now, she sees flickers of them, fears that don't make sense for this youthful creature she loves.

His spirit is a strong one, steel that has been folded and pressed over and over, forged into a thirteen year old that stood against his father to save a battalion from a suicidal order - and it cost him dearly, but he stood back up, again, and again, and he walked out of that abusive house with his head high, his spine straight, and life gripped by the throat.

Katara doesn't know if she'll ever love someone like she loves him, with a deep well of respect and admiration, in this life or the next.

* * *

Zuko looks at her and is blinded, every time, by how beautiful she is. How lovely. She is kind to the depths of her soul, and he is attracted like a moth to this flame.

She has not lived as many lives as he - apparently she's more discerning in that regard - but he is drawn to the servant's heart, the warrior princess, the sugar queen, the woman who drives him speechless when he tries to compliment her, because how can he put into words how good she is?

He won't choose another life, not if he can't spend it with her, watching her, basking in her glow, seeing her grow into someone even more wonderful.

He'd climb an old temple of three thousand steps, carrying her the whole way, if it would mean he gets the next seven lives to see her smile.

* * *

"You've lived a lot of lives."

"Yeah, I was kind of a reckless kid a lot, always doing crazy stunts that got me killed. I'd immediately choose to come back, reincarnated again."

"And you never thought to slow down?"

"Guess I was in a hurry to meet you."


	3. Memories

Katara wakes up with her hands just under her breastbone, morning after morning.

She traces a scar not on her body, absent-minded, not truly thinking.

It's not her scar, but it kind of is.

Her fingers find the carved stone at her throat, and she wishes her first thoughts were memories of her mother - of Kya's kindness and warmth, her laughter and lessons, her bravery.

Now, after so many years and adventures _and marriage_ , her first thought is of an idiot boy who offered to save her from pirates, and the man that saved her from lightening.

She rolls over now, splaying out across the bed for two, feet tangled in red satin sheets.

Fire Lord Zuko is away on a contrived goodwill mission to get him out of the palace while Katara and Iroh ferret out a plot against him.

The Fire Lady is left with only memories of her husband, at least for a few more days.

Then, she will wake up with her hands running over him, tracing his scars, perhaps, or more wonderfully his lips. Then she can wake him up with reminders of all their joy before, and all the joy to come.


	4. Lilac

Katara always keeps lilacs in their garden (and when she moves South, she uses the fortune her husband gave her to build herself a hothouse).

She smiles whenever she sees them, for they are her own private reminder, even if they are the most populous flower she cultivates, and she spreads their blooms through-out the house for the precious first weeks of spring.

At first, in this "second chapter" of her life, everyone assumes she chooses them for how they symbolize spring.

She did just win a war, save the day, land the hero. Lots of "refreshment" there.

In addition, everyone assumes that, having come from "constant winter," she loves spring, and seasons. They assume she prefers her days with constant, even hours.

(She doesn't, of course. But she has things more valuable and honored than what she left behind. The trade, not even perhaps, is a fair one.)

Then everyone - Aang included - starts to assume she loves lilacs because they stand for first loves.

They're correct, just wrong on who that love is.

When she's a widow, in her "third chapter," having vowed to put an icicle through whomever decided to divide her life into thirds based on men, Katara is merely a traditional widow. Lilacs have always been their flower.

Katara picks a fresh bloom from her hothouse, and slowly makes her way back into the kitchen, to place it with honor above her sink.

"They" have always been wrong.

She never needed lilacs to remind her of spring, then or now, and there are three children running around to remind her of Aang. Flowers are unnecessary for that, and have always been. She has no regrets about that, or about anything in her life.

Katara has always kept and cultivated lilacs, with their vibrant and quick bloom, to remind her of a boy now a man with a star-shaped scar taken for her. Her first partner, fighting by her side in an automatic place of respect, seeing her as his equal. He taught her what to expect from love, what to demand from her husband, and how some things should not be given up, even for those we love.

Maybe in this universe, in this life, Katara's first love was not her last.

As she twists the vase of lilacs just so, making the sunlight stream through the petals, Katara hopes there's a life or a universe where it was.


	5. Fever

_A/N: You should have "Fever" by Peggy Lee ready to listen to. Also, in a strange departure most of the background characters are not based on AtlA characters, but dancers at the club I go to._

* * *

It's Zuko's first time back in House of Loom in several months.

He doubts anyone missed him; he'd only come a few times before work pulled him away, regrettably.

Still, the dance club had irrevocably changed him.

Suki couldn't believe he was going to a dance club, before he corrected her assumptions. There were no crazy lights, drinking, or drugs. In fact, Suki was almost bored when she went, because she wasn't expecting a swing dancing club.

Yeah, Zuko Sozin got sucked in by swing. To be fair, House of Loom is a more modern club, with an even mix between blues, west coast, and lindy. Zuko hadn't been around to figure out if most of the dancers had a specialty or not, because to his still young eye they all looked like masters.

So while Zuko had spent the last five months running about the world repairing his father's mistakes, he found a dance teacher in each city, and practiced like an obsessed man.

He came back how he wanted to, something more than an advanced beginner in each form.

His fiver exchanged for a raffle ticket, Zuko found an empty table (score!) where he could switch out his shoes, all the while watching for the brunette he hoped to see.

He hadn't caught her name, but he couldn't forget her. She was beautiful, yes, with wavy brown locks that floated in the air while she spun and curves like a winding mountain road, but more than that, she was joyful. When she dances, you can't look away, and it doesn't matter who she's dancing with. She brings that same brilliant smile to a dance whether she's being thrown about like a LindyFest Jack&Jill Champ or quietly chatting with a lead who only knows the basic of single-time east coast.

She loves this, and Zuko loves her for that.

He danced with her once, when he was a lead who knew three moves and was painfully shy. She smiled, as if it was the best dance of her night, and made pleasant conversation while he stammered.

Zuko doubts she remembers him, and he's positive he'll still stammer when he talks to her, but this time he may just give her the best dance of her night.

He sees her when he stands, shoes tied and ready to go. She's standing alone, watching the dancefloor while "Lavender Coffin" finishes..

Tightening his resolve, Zuko starts for her.

He pretends to be intimately concentrated on the water fountain when he gets close, but a friend of hers comes up first, and Zuko can overhear their conversation, his stomach turning uncomfortably.

"-ed with Jet yet?"

"Nah. Haven't gotten my fix."

"I can't believe you don't just ask him out, already."

She giggles. "He's nice, and a great dancer, but you've seen him. He's cute regularly, and damn attractive when he dances, but he has this, aura. I don't know where he's been."

"And I forget. Your 'dance heart' belongs to Dan. How many times have you danced with him tonight?"

"Not enough!"

"Well speak of the devil-"

The opening bars of "Sing, sing, sing" thump through the room as a man old enough to have danced with Frankie Manning offers his hand to her, and they run onto the floor.

Zuko's heart lifts.

He spends an entertaining four minutes watching a wild Lindy Hop, her skirt flying just as high as her jumps.

And when the song finishes - and she hugs Dan like an old friend in thanks - he's waiting. She's panting, slightly out of breath, but the next song is bound to be a slow one.

"Do you want to dance," he asks, slightly timid, as she glances towards him, lungs working overtime. Her eyes run up and down his frame - she's trying to place him; there's a hint of recognition in her eyes, but he's still crushed because there's a "no," a "gotta sit this one out" making it's way to her tongue.

The next song starts, though, and it's rolling bass promises a slow dance.

Zuko's hand drops, but the flash of energy in her eyes inspires him again. "Do you blues?"

Her breathing is more even as she places her right hand in his left. "Yes. And I thought I knew all the blues leads here."

"Just got back from a long business trip."

"Ah," she breathes, sliding with him to the side as the singer begins to croon.

 _Never know how much I love you  
Never know how much I care  
When you put your arms around me  
I get a fever that's so hard to bear_

At first, he leaves her at a distance, in open, leaving her to the freedom of blues and time to recoup.

Yet when the first punch of the music hits, he cheats, pulling her into a brief moment of pivots, out into a spin. Her arm automatically bends, even as she reaches out away from him.

So Zuko spins her in, closing their dance, and takes in the softness of her hair against her cheek, how the curve of her takes the edge of his lines.

 _Everybody's got the fever  
That is somethin' you all know  
Fever isn't such a new thing  
Fever started long time ago_

He spins her, dips her, and crows inside that she leaves her arm hooked around his neck for the longest time until she has to let go.

When he cheats again, throwing in the argentine tango his mother insisted on in his youth, she follows as he knew she would. She is a goddess of dance, who can follow just about anything. Except when she surprises him.

He expected ochos. He's seen her do them with other leads, so he is completely thrown when he reels he back, twisting her past a ninety degree angle from him, and she wraps her working leg around his waist when he snaps her back.

 _Fever I'm on fire  
Fever yea I burn forsooth_

"I'm Zuko," he murmurs.

"Katara," she replies, breathless, though this is not half the exertion of her last dance.

He keeps an eye on the couples around them, few though they are, because there's nothing worse than a collision. It's difficult, for her half-lidded eyes are right there, and he wants to press a kiss to her forehead. He pulls her closer and pivots again, trying to think of something to say, to ask her to coffee.

She's humming, he realizes, humming along with the song as it winds down, as their dance ends.

 _Fever, till you sizzle_

"What a lovely way to burn."

Her arms are looped around his neck and waist, his own arm tucked into her curve to support her as he dips her, lower and lower.

"What a lovely way to burn."

She meets his eyes, and he's never seen a better blue.

"What a lovely way to burn."

He almost kisses her, but instead asks, "can I buy you coffee?"

"If I can buy you a drink."


	6. Coffee

Zuko's secretly glad he's not the best dancer in the company.

Oh, one day he'd love to be a principle, but for now he's happy with chorus roles, leaping through the Russian Trepak in the yearly production of the Nutcracker.

He's happy because he can watch the coffee dance.

Katara's gorgeous, with skin like mocha that looks perfect in the red costumes they've chosen. He watches only her, as her flexibility and dedication to her craft make her seem to flow from one movement to another like liquid, like coffee pouring from pot to mug.

They're friends - who isn't when you're a chorus dancer and are constantly stripping backstage in front of everyone - and he's glad he can compartmentalize feelings.

He hums the melody all the time behind her, when she's getting ready. She'll spin around and deck him with the pillow she keeps at her makeup station, "totally not for naps."

It's only fair play, since she'll set all his ringtones and alert sounds to the Tea melody, his absolute least favorite.

She's warm to the touch, always, when dancing, as he knows from the few times they've been partners in class. She can laugh at herself, take care of herself, and Zuko's hoping he's half the man he wants to be, because even if he was a better man it still wouldn't be enough.

As he watches her flourish one last time, enjoying her solo moments before they close the show, he realizes he wants to make it enough, because it's not as if she's perfect. She has flaws.

When, after the show, he sees her chatting - more friendly than usual - with one of the more pretentious toy soldiers, Zuko steps up his game.

She's stretching in the warm-up room, alone and thirty minutes early to class when he slips in the door, humming her theme loudly. She looks up with a glare that softens into glee to see him offering her a black coffee with cream and five sugars.

"Are you going to keep this joke running long?" she asks, after the thank yous and one sip punctuated by a drawn-out sigh of contentment.

"Oh yes. I am going to tease you for the rest of your life."

She blinks, before smiling even wider. "Good. Gonna buy my coffee, too?"

He meets her gaze. "If you let me."

Another dancer loudly walks into the room and goes about stretching, so Katara winks at Zuko over her coffee. "We'll negotiate at another date."

"Or on a date?"

"Exactly my idea."


	7. Candles

**Candles; or Jab Tak Hai Jaan**

"Please, please let him live," she whispers, on her knees in the church before the lit prayer candles. "Please let him live. I will do anything."

* * *

Katara will never forget the happy young man, singing an old tune to himself while using a combination of a shovel and firebending to clear snow off the steps of the church.

He's wearing a light jacket - the snow has barely started - and it's threadbare like the rest of his clothes, but he doesn't seem to mind.

He's also shooting her glances out from beneath his shaggy black hair.

Katara smiles through her prayers, lights a candle, and then lifts up informal prayers of thankfulness when she steps out into the snow and the man has found his courage. He sees her, and starts dancing about with the shovel as a prop, singing a song she thinks she heard in a movie once.

When, breathless, he introduces himself as Zuko, she politely replies with her name. She doubts she'll see him again. Snow shoveling is a temp position, and she's seen so many newcomers to the city cycle in and out.

Imagine her surprise when he's there, a waiter at the restaurant where she's having the most awkward dinner of her life.

She wishes the sea could swallow her up and let her die when he sees her. his whole being lights up, and she wishes she could match him, but there's a box sitting between her and her date, and she knows what's inside.

She is happy to hear he's moving up in the world. This waiting position isn't temporary, and she can tell with his dedication he might own the place one day.

So when he comes back with their food, and sees the engagement pendant sitting there, accepted, but not worn, he puts on a false smile and offers to get a bottle of champagne.

Katara doesn't see him until two weeks later when she's sneaked out of her own engagement party to throw ice at walls in the alley behind the ballroom. The door creaks open, and he's standing there, halfway out the door, trash in hand, that annoyingly handsome smile on his face.

She walks back into her party with arrangements to trade waterbending moves for guitar lessons.

When, six months later, her father finally wants her to set a date with Haru so the nice boy who's always helped their family will finally be family, Katara bursts into tears, and can't explain it, only goes running out of the house, one frantic text sent.

That text, her failure to be an adult about her life, her heart, her engagement-

Zuko ran to her, or as close as he could get.

Some bastard didn't look before turning, blinded-sided him, a metal machine careening into a pedestrian moving too fast and focused to react.

So here's Katara, on her knees in church, praying while he lies in a hospital bed, condition critical.

"Please," she whispers, fumbling with the lighter to get the candle lit, remember the ease with which he lit prayers the few times he joined her after their lessons. "Let him live. I will do anything; only let him live. Look, if he lives, if you give him life, I promise I'll stay away. I won't see him again. Just let him live. Keep his fire lit."

She falls asleep there, before the candles. When the priest nudges her awake, to send her home so he can sleep, all the candles but hers have burned down, burned out.

 _So be it. The deal is struck._

When he comes to, when they drag her to his side, she tells him the deal she made.

She tries to leave.

The boy grabbed on to life and demanded it be better, the man who grabbed her heart and showed it how to sing, he seizes her arm before she can leave. The sounds from the machines around him leap with extra activity before he manages to ask,

"And if you are my life? If you are the fire in my soul? Would you leave me, alone, unable to light so much as a candle to keep me warm?"

* * *

When she returns Haru's necklace, the sweet earthbender smiles slyly. "I knew it. He'll make you far happier than I could."

The world doesn't fall apart; Zuko doesn't drop dead.

* * *

When Hakoda meets him, Zuko's welcomed with open arms.

* * *

The wedding goes off without a hitch.

In the middle of the reception, Katara sneaks off, followed closely by Zuko. They hurry to that same old church, as she intends to light the same candle in prayer for their new life.

Only, the candle holder is empty.

Zuko is fishing in his pockets for some change so they can buy a candle from a store somewhere when the priest wanders in.

"I had to move your candle."

"Excuse me?"

"Your candle." He points to the altar, past where lay feet may walk. Sitting in a small alcove is a simple, lit candle like the ones she's always used. "It hasn't gone out yet. There's still a scrap of wick hanging on. Seems a prayer was answered." He glances between the couple in their wedding finery. "And in a better way than they could have dreamed."


End file.
